ISABEL - Storm of 2003
September 19, 2003
The Beaufort News
Isabel Claims One, Floods Homes
Utilities fare better than in the past – Utility services fared better
than during storms in the past in most places, with down east
communities again being the hardest hit by Hurricane Isabel.
Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative had about 60 workers at
substations in Otway and Atlantic once roadways were cleared this
morning.
Gary Zajac, CCEC vice president of marketing and external affairs said
about 300 customers served by the Atlantic substation were without
power, and another 766 served out of the Otway substation lost power
during the storm.
“Yesterday, we couldn’t get there because of the flooding,” Mr. Zajac
said this morning. “All the rest of the substations are up.”
Nonetheless, he said, another 300 to 400 other customers were
without power for various reasons, but crews were tracking those
outages and restoring power first thing today.
“Right now, we are in outstanding condition,” Mr. Zajac said this
morning.
Progress Energy crews restored power to 175,000 of its customers
overnight.
As of 11 this morning, 134,500 Progress Energy customers were still
without power down from a peak of 420,000 at 7 p.m. on Thursday.
Hardest hit counties include Wake with 79,000 outages. About 8000
Carteret County customers have reported power outages.

Progress Energy spokesman Will Edgar said that number will likely rise
as customers in coastal or heavily damages areas who were not
immediately able to get to their homes determine if they have power.
“Hopefully, we’ll have a sense of that later today as people get out to
assess their hurricane damage,” Mr. Edgar said.